Archive for September, 2009
Can Matt Murphy really win the Lt. Governor race in Illinois by running an anti-woman, frat boy campaign?
How can this man be Lt. Governor when he can't even control his own frat boy staff?
The new Matt Murphy campaign slogan? Toga! Toga! Toga!
The 2010 statewide races in Illinois don’t have as much interest for us as Senate contests nationally. We strongly support Senator Roland Burris and continue to defend him daily against unwarranted attacks (Burris has done more for women and the LGBTQ community in Illinois than any other state politician we can think of, for one thing). Since he is not seeking election in 2010, we have no vested interest in that Senate seat apart from not wanting Alexi Giannoulias, scion of the mob-connected Broadway Bank-ing Giannoulias clan, to win the Democrats’ nomination (we, thus, support David Hoffman in our primaries). If Republican Mark Kirk can overcome the scandals his ex-wife plans to level upon his campaign, Jerri Ryan-style, then Kirk would make a decent Senator for Illinois. We also have no problem with Pat Quinn remaining Governor of our state, despite his refusal to support anti-corruption and anti-wasteful spending measures we want to see enacted in the most corrupt and wasteful state in the Union. People we respect back Quinn, and they wouldn’t do that if Quinn wasn’t a good guy. The Republicans would have to put forward someone truly exceptional to offer a better choice for us. Kirk Dillard would be such a pick, but no one knows who will win the Republican primary.
We do, however, believe Matt Murphy would make a terrible Lt. Governor based on the decisions he’s already made in terms of whom he surrounds himself with.
The Matt Murphy for Lt. Governor campaign is one big frat party.
His key decision-makers are 21-23 year old guys, few of whom are even college graduates; most of which have a propensity for getting drunk at functions around town and embarrassing themselves, and their candidate.
Friends of ours have personally witnessed this, with Murphy staffers so drunk at events they actually pick fights, splash drinks at people, and generally engage in testosterone-fueled pissing contests with anyone not backing Matt Murphy.
It’s disconcerting to believe Republicans in Illinois are so desperate for a candidate that they’d give Murphy’s lack of better judgment their stamp of approval by making him their nominee in February. Last spring, Republicans put forward Rosanna Pulido as their nominee for Rahm Emanuel’s Congressional seat. As Democrats who support Mike Quigley, we were thrilled because Pulido comes across as a crazy person. During the 2008 election, Pulido appeared unbalanced and completely out of it at events we heard her speak at — where she made a point of making nasty racial slurs at John McCain and calling him, absurdly, “Juan McCainguez” for some reason. She is a strange, strange woman.
And Matt Murphy seems to be in the same whack-a-doodle boat.
We’re clearly not the only ones who’ve heard about his campaign staff’s juvenile, unprofessional, frat boy antics. Murphy himself has to know what’s going on, and what the boys he’s entrusted his campaign to are doing while representing him to voters in Chicago. If Murphy knows full well who these guys are, and does nothing to rein them in, then maybe Murphy sees no problem in their behavior.
The other option is that Murphy’s clueless and has no idea what’s going on. In which case, we wonder how effective he’d be as a Lt. Governor and what he does with himself all day. If he can’t see his own staff of 21 year olds carousing around town like drunken sailors on leave, chasing skirts and constantly trying to prove what big boys they are, then we wonder if Murphy’s sitting in a corner of his office in his underroos drawing pictures of his feet with unsharpened crayons. That’s what we bet Rosanna Pulido does all day, as informed and professional as she is. Perhaps she and Murphy attend the same daycare, where current events and the goings-on of their own campaigns are bits of information these two never get…at least not before snack and nap time.
If Murphy and his team are the best the GOP can do in Illinois, we just wonder how women in this state in particular will respond. Why would a woman want to support a man sending out these sorts of messages from a campaign that might just as well be run from Animal House itself?
Saturday Open Thread: September 26th 2009
What’s on your mind this Saturday?
What are people in your part of the world talking about?
How much funding goes into the Congressional Black Caucus? That’s totally random, but we’re wondering if tax dollars are going in any way to support a race-based exclusionary organization that refuses to admit some members on the basis of their skin color. In this the post-racial Golden Age of Unicorns and Rainbows much trumpeted under our illustrious president, we think efforts should be made to defund all organizations out there that use race as the primary basis of membership. Any government, corporate, or private funding streams keeping racist organizations afloat should be shut down immediately — and that should most definitely include exclusionary organizations run by blacks, too.
One consequence of all the recent race-baiting by the likes of Henry Gates, Eric Holder, Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, James Clyburne, and our illustrious president Dr. Utopia should be strong light cast onto the activities of the CBC, the UNCF, and all other organizations that see only the color of a person’s skin in an age when post-racial America is supposed to be up and running. If these clowns can shout RAAACISM! from the rooftops over anything, then why isn’t RAAACISM! being shouted back at them for their blacks-only policies?
Fair’s fair.
The CBC, at the very least, should be illegal. And every white, Hispanic, and Asian member of Congress should apply for membership in it so there can be a long record of everyone denied access to the CBC because of their race.
****
In related news, there seems to be more wailing and crying today over a cartoon — this time it’s the black community accusing Disney of more RAAACISM! over “The Princess and the Frog”, the upcoming New Orleans-based “princess story” featuring “the first black Disney princess”. The latest rolling around on the floor diaper fudging is centered on “Prince Naveen”, who appears to be a Middle Eastern prince of some sort. The black community is upset and screaming RAAACISM! because Disney didn’t include an Eddie Murphy-styled Coming to America black prince in the cartoon, deciding instead to go with an interracial romance for the black “princess” heroine.
This whole project is fascinating to us for several reasons:
(1) Does anyone else appreciate the fact that Disney is attacked at every turn by the black community for everything it has done with this “black princess” cartoon…and yet, in almost the same breathe, the black community complains it’s taken so long for Disney to make a “black princess” cartoon. Let’s think about this for a minute. PERHAPS the reason Disney “took so long” to subject itself to nonstop bad headlines and diaper fudging from the black community over this is because Disney knew that no matter what it did, the Henry Gates/Eric Holder/Spike Lee/Al Sharpton crybaby brigade would lead a charge against them over just about anything. If we were Disney, we would have avoided this whole issue like the plague it is by just not having a “black princess” character for all these years. Being criticized for not having a black character was certainly better for business than investing a hundred million dollars in a cartoon that does nothing but draw unfounded and ridiculous criticism from the people who have been screaming and yelling for this very project for years. It reminds us of small children, kindergarteners, screaming and yelling and wetting themselves for fish sticks or pizza or something for lunch, and then when the lunch is almost ready the little kids start complaining they don’t like how it smells and want hamburgers now instead. It is beyond asinine.
(2) We know the prince in this story was originally supposed to be named “Prince Harry”, and was supposed to be European, from some fictitious country but based on the real Prince Harry — a handsome, playboy, occasionally stupid, fun-loving sort. But, Disney backed off a full-on interracial romance between a white prince and a black heroine. But, just appreciate for a moment that Disney actually thought about doing this…very progressive on the part of the House of Mouse. Ultimately, it was the black community that made Disney abandon this…so it was RAAACISM in the black community that kept Prince Harry from being white, and from being “Prince Harry” at all. When the wailing and crying and rolling around on the floor started up about the lead character being named “Maddy”, Harry’s name was changed to “Naveen” when hers was switched to “Tiana”, two made-up names Disney came up with to appease the black community on this. For whatever reason, Disney opted to make Naveen Arab instead of black…and we wonder what went into that. Maybe Disney had some backbone and decided it wasn’t going to let the Henry Gates/Eric Holder/Spike Lee/Jesse Jackson/Al Sharptons dictate its storytelling completely. Perhaps “Prince Naveen” is an act of defiance on the part of the mouse. Because the story really could have had an Eddie Murphy-style African Prince like from “Coming to America”. In a pop culture nod, Disney could have even had that Prince be from Zamunda, or named him Akeem like in Murphy’s story. How fun would it have been to have used James Earl Jones as a cameo in the cartoon as the King of Zamunda at some point…riffing on his role in “Coming” as well as making an appearance in a second Disney cartoon, after the Lion King in the 90s. So, there’s a story there as to why Disney didn’t use an African prince. We think at least part of it is a big F-U to the Henry Gates crowd.
(3) We think “Princess and the Frog” will be a hit, but will not be a blockbuster and will end up in Pocahontas-territory as a cartoon parents are dragged to see by their kids but not one they actually want to go to on their own. The poor box office will, of course, be blamed on RAAACISM! But, the black community doesn’t see, yet again, how it is sabotaging its own success here. By deliberately attacking this project before it’s even out of the gate the Henry Gates crowd is attaching a negative stigma to what could be a marvelous cartoon. Labeling it “controversial” does not make parents want to take little Susie and Billy to see this. We’ve been following this project for two years now and have yet to see a single positive story written about it. All of the presss Disney has gotten for doing this has been terrible…comprised entirely of diaper fudging and RAAACIST! cries. This, people, is not the way to sell a family entertainment picture. Parents may decide this is a “wait until it’s on video” flick, if they think there are too many controversial elements and want the power to be able to turn the thing on and off at parts or if they believe they’ll have to answer questions or explain certain things to their kids throughout the film. The black community, we believe, is adversely affecting this cartoon’s revenue-generating potential by attacking Disney at every turn. And yet, they wonder why Disney never sunk a fortune into a “black princess” before.
(4) New Orleans is one of our favorite cities in the world. The lot of us here used to go there for Halloween every year until we moved to Chicago (a town with its own Halloween adventures and traditions). We have not been back to New Orleans since Katrina, for a reason. We’re still heartbroken to accept the fact the city we loved will never exist again. New Orleans is still there, but it’s not the same and never will be again. Just thinking about that is tough. Seeing movies set in New Orleans is hard, still. There’s too many emotions there. And this is just us talking as individuals. We love that Disney set a cartoon there…but we don’t particularly want to see it. Maybe that will or will not make any sense to you, but it’s how we feel. We’re so angry Republican and Democrat administrations have not invested in rebuilding and permanently securing New Orleans. Every year that passes without progress there is so hard for us to take. Seeing a gorgeous, cartoonish, magical version of a struggling city might also do a lot of harm if people walk out of this cartoon believing everything is fine and dandy in the Big Easy these days. That’s very much not the case, so films that present a fantasy like that might make some people feel that “oh, it’s all finally over…what a beautiful city…I can forget about Katrina now”. That would be a crying shame.
As the film gets closer to release, we bet the Henry Gates crowd will grow louder and more childish in its antics over a cartoon. A CARTOON. You have to give Disney a lot of credit for doing this, though, even knowing no matter what they did would be attacked, and the diaper-wearing crybaby crowd would fling their soiled Pampers at the screen no matter what Disney put up there. Because that’s who Henry Gates, in particular, really is.
A diaper baby.
The more ridiculous his ilk get with things like cartoons the more we hope Americans at large call them out on their behavior.
What is "Next Level" and what is it doing in Illinois to the Republicans?
Here’s something interesting we’ve caught bits and pieces of, but maybe some of you out there might have some more pieces to the puzzle we can fill in. It’s one of those things we know there’s a story to, but we don’t know just what it is, yet, or where it can go.
Last summer, we and other Hillary Democrats teamed up with moderate Republicans here in Chicago to defeat Dr. Utopia — all of us crossing party lines for the first time to join forces with people we were always taught, since childhood, were the “enemy”. Through DeMcCrats for McCain, we volunteered with, phone-banked alongside, and cavasssed in four different states teaming up with our Republican counterparts. We knew what Dr. Utopia and his ACORN and Alinsky method followers did during the 2008 primaries and worked our hearts out to show Republicans who this man truly is, and what he is capable of. At great personal cost to all of us, we burned a lot of bridges in Democrat-controlled Chicago by taking a stand against the Democrats’ nominee, but we never regretted this because we remain convinced doing everything we could to stop Dr. Utopia was the right thing to do.
Though we failed, and Dr. Utopia was elevated from an Illinois and Chicago problem to a national one, our eyes were opened to the fact that Republicans aren’t all evil (and Democrats aren’t all good). We met a lot of great people, in the Chicago Young Republicans (CYRs) group in particular, and see this as a major silver lining in the thunderstorm that is the Utopia Administration.
But, we’ve had little to do with the CYRs since the Tax Day Tea Party protest at Navy Pier in Chicago. During the campaign, the CYRs were under the leadership of Keely Drukala, an amazing and dynamic political analyst here in Chicago. Drukala was the CYR president and believes in the cause of strengthening Republicans in Chicago and throughout Illinois as a counterbalance to the graft and corruption of Dr. Utopia’s followers in our City and State government. Drukala was forced out as president and treated badly by the CYRs not that long ago, and the group changed greatly in her absence. Most effort and money in the CYRs now seems to flow into cocktail parties, or extravaganzas with semi-famous bands (at $6,500 a pop) at clubs like Cubbybear, instead of organizing to get good people elected to office.
Largely, under the new president post-Drukala, the CYRS have become a skirt-chasing club for frat boys (and the nebbishes who crave their approval) who want to meet girls in bars where loud music is playing and everyone’s wearing blazers.
The CYRs recently broke their own charter by defacto endorsing Matt Murphy for Governor (and, since Murphy downgraded his campaign, Matt Murphy for Lt. Governor…which, we assume, means they’ll also stand behind Murphy when he announces he’ll be running for Dog Catcher after he next downgrades his flailing campaign) when they’re prohibited from siding with any candidate in the primaries. But, the new CYR president and several board members work for Murphy, so the CYR board has been using all of its email lists (supposedly 1,500+ strong) and fundraising capabilities to push Murphy to all of its members (at the exclusion of others running for Governor on the GOP side, like Andy Andrzejeski (nice man with an unpronounceable name), Kirk Dillard (the best GOP choice in our opinion), Bill Brady (not the one who played basketball), and Andy McKenna (a circus clown without a circus)). It is Matt Murphy this and Matt Murphy that in every blast the CYR board sends out on Facebook and through its weekly emails. If that’s not an endorsement, then we don’t know what is.
Rumor has it there’s a lot of other odd things at work in the organization, and lately we’ve heard it’s because of a group called “Next Level” that’s calling a lot of the shots. Supposedly, “Next Level” is a group within the national Young Republican organization that has the goal of completely destroying the Republican organization in states like Illinois in the belief that, Phoenix-like, they’ll then rise from the ashes stronger and better able to compete with Democrats.
There was a big Young Republicans national conference in Indianapolis a month or two ago where the “Next Level” faction was at odds with the loyalist faction, as well as the rest of the people there who had no idea SD-6 was operating subversively in their midst.
This “Next Level” business is as ridiculous as anything Jennifer Garner’s up to these days. The way Republicans take back Illinois is to get their asses out of their comfy chairs on election day and f***ing VOTE. We’ve said it many times before but it’s too important not to harp on: a great many Republicans in Illinois, particularly Log Cabins for some reason, deliberately didn’t vote last fall because they said they’d rather have a new Carter in Dr. Utopia than allow moderate McCain to win (because McCain’s win would have eclipsed their chance to raise “a new Reagan” to the top in 2012). The Log Cabins are out of their mind crazy people (led by, laughably enough, a man who looks like Tab Hunter and can race at lightspeed to get in front of any camera in a three-state radius – but can’t muster the energy to do a damn thing other than that).
If Republicans want to win elections, they should maybe put their energy into fielding better candidates…and using their ground teams to support those candidates and convince independents that control of Congress is key to getting this country back on track in 2010. $50,000 cocktail parties with the 80s retro band Sixteen Candles and appearances by closeted young members of Congress aren’t going to do that. Plotting to take down existing organizations with the aid of shadowy “Next Level” is not going to do that.
We want to see Dr. Utopia and his band of fools defeated in 2010 and 2012. That’s the only way we can save the Democratic party and take it back to Clintonian centrism, which is where we believe Democrats should be. We want to defeat the Left, and the only way we can do that right now is to help good Republicans take out bad Democrats wherever they have the chance.
“Next Level” has its own agenda, which we don’t support. The CYRs seem to have a new agenda, too, now that their hardworking and sensible president Drukala is gone, and her successor is taking things into America’s Wildest Frat Parties territory…and onto the “next level”, whatever that is.
Like we said, there’s an interesting story here…we don’t know where it leads yet, but as we learn more we’ll fill you in for sure.
Do your part to save Chicago. Tell the IOC the 2016 Games should go to Rio.
Save Chicago from itself: support Rio for 2016
On October 2nd, 2009 the IOC will vote to award the 2016 Olympics Games to either Chicago or Rio.
Every day more Chicagoans organize to compel the IOC to award the Games to Rio. Please help us.
A great American city needs you to save itself from graft, corruption, overindulgence, and financial ruin.
The Olympics will bankrupt our city. There will be no longterm economic positive for us. It will be a giant party we’ll pay dearly for, and for which our cultural amenities, schools, and other public institutions will suffer for as all the City’s money (and all private donations for the next 7 years) is dumped down the Olympics black hole. In Chicago, there was a plot of land called Block 37 directly across from Marshall Fields on State Street downtown, in the very heart of the city. About a billion dollars was dumped into this development — which languished in a Hell of incompetence and idiocy for decades, where Mayor Daley’s other dream project, Supertrains to the Airports, is supposed to have its station. Well, a billion dollars later there’s an incomplete train station buried underground like a pharaoh’s tomb, no funding for the tens of billions it will take to dig the supertrain tunnels to the airports, and a squat, ugly multi-use glass tower on top that’s so hideous and poorly constructed that few of the condos and little of the retail and office space in the building has been sold or filled.
If Chicago has such routine bureaucratic and planning boondoggles as this, just imagine what we’ll do with the Olympics.
Let Rio have the Games.
Rio will do a wonderful job with them…the scenery will be beautiful…and South America can foot the bill for the world’s party for once. Chicago, and America itself under Dr. Utopia, can not afford these Games. Chicago has enough Block 37s. We don’t need any more.
What most of you out there don’t realize is that the Olympics push is not about Chicago or the Games themselves. This is all about Mayor Daley staying in office for two more terms. He committed the city to the Olympics bid because he needed some issue to distract from a corruption probe that threatened to force him out of office. He was looking weak to his machine’s foes, and the Olympics was a way to reclaim his power and deflect challenges. The Olympics is a giant scheme to funnel billions of dollars to Daley’s political allies in the Sopranos-esque construction world, in particular. This is all about Mayor Daley, his desire to hold onto power, and his obsession with legacy.
Because the Olympics are so We Are the World and kid-friendly, Daley masterfully wrapped himself in them to hide the stink of the corruption probe enveloping him. He gave himself a Chicago shower by let the Olympics-mania rain down on him.
For most of last year, we were certain Chicago would land the Games — until about a month or so ago when the IOC issued a report saying Rio’s crime and transportation problems are not insurmountable. We were sure the gangs of teenaged thugs who routinely murder tourists in Rio would prevent the city from hosting the Games…THAT, or the fact athletes will have to commute long distances on winding roads to get to venues (something athletes complain about, as they believe sitting in cars traveling makes them less competitive in events…and they want Olympics villages to be located no more than 15 minutes from sporting venues). But, the IOC’s last report said Rio’s crime and transportation issues are not as severe as Chicago’s financing issues.
The IOC emotionally wants to award South America it’s first Games…and we are most certainly all for that.
The politically connected people we know feel the Games are Chicago’s at this point — absent a push from Chicagoans themselves, and their friends across America, to tell the IOC to take the Games to Rio. All of you have been watching the games the White House has been playing with the Games. They sent Mrs. Utopia, Valerie Jarrett, and Lake Michigan’s own Charybdis, Oprah Winfrey, to Copenhagen to secure the Games for Chicago. In our opinion, that’s like sending Bigfoot, Frankenstein, and the Loch Ness Monster to plead our case — so we’re all for that. That gruesome threesome will not succeed in convincing the IOC that Chicago, and America itself, can actually finance the 2016 Olympics. All eyes are on what Dr. Utopia himself will do, as the current president, since Tony Blair and Vladimir Putin were both recently instrumental in bringing the Games home for their respective countries in 2012 and 2014.
Dr. Utopia’s been painted into a corner.
If he goes to Copenhagen and Chicago doesn’t get the Games, he looks weak and embarrassed. If he doesn’t go and Rio gets it, then the blame falls on him. If he does go and Chicago wins, then the White House and his administration own the waste and corruption that’s going to flow like manna once these Games are awarded. Pigs are already lining up for the troughs on this one…and we aren’t just talking about Oprah. The mob, all of Daley’s political allies, well-connected wealthy Democrats, ACORN (or whatever it soon morphs into), and the whole Alinsky-Ayers-Dohrn-Wright crowd will make out like bandits as Daley’s patronage machine works overtime to haul out the pork stamped gleefully with those big Olympics rings.
People, you just do not want that much money flowing unchecked into the most corrupt city in North America, where the Mayor rules from City Hall like a dictator in his palace, awaiting delivery of all that unimaginable treasure.
Not since the days of Seti I has a pharaoh dreamt of such riches for his legacy.
PLEASE do not let this happen.
Visit www.NoGamesChicago.com for more information.
Go to www.ChicagoansforRio.com to email the IOC and let them know Chicago cannot afford these Games and will be crippled by them all in the name of the delusional legacy dreams of its imperial Mayor.
We have less than a week to avert disaster and need your help to do it.
Why does Eric Holder keep attacking the CIA and other law enforcement when Muslims keep trying to blow things up in the US?
Today, we learned about foiled plots hatched by Muslims to blow up a 60 story building in Dallas, attack a federal Courthouse in Chicago, and destroy the New York City subway system.
These attacks were stopped by the intelligence and Homeland Security network former President George W. Bush put in place to keep this nation safe.
Dr. Utopia, our current president, and his Attorney General, notorious race-baiter Eric Holder, insist on attacking the CIA and other law enforcement agencies that continue to keep this nation safe — while allowing criminals like the Black Panthers and Bill Richardson to skate away without prosecution, because they are near and dear to the current president’s heart.
Every single attack on the CIA and law enforcement by Eric Holder needs to be trumpeted from coast to coast — because one day Dr. Utopia’s naive and ridiculous assault on our defenders is going to cost us big time.
Today, the headlines could be detailing the destruction of buildings and loss of life in three American cities in the name of Islam. Who knows how Dr. Utopia would feel about that. Based on his comments at the UN, and his comments consistently on the national scene, perhaps he feels that we as a country deserve this. Based on how Eric Holder treats the Black Panthers, perhaps he’d award the bombers medals if he had the chance. Meanwhile, he’d spend the Justice Department’s resources to chase after any law enforcement officers who were too mean to Muslims while trying to stop them from killing thousands of people in Texas, Illinois, and New York today.
As much as we hate to say this, with the absolute delusional fools we have in Washington right now at the helm of our ship of state there indeed is going to be another Islamic attack on the US during Dr. Utopia’s term. This administration continues to hobble law enforcement and the CIA’s efforts to keep us safe. It’s like tying a goalie’s arms and legs together and then hoping he can stop all the balls shooting towards the net. Well, today Homeland Security proved it can still head-butt with the best of them.
But, how long can our luck last when we have a president and AG who live in some bizarre alternate reality where they believe those who try to kill Americans have more rights and more importance than Americans themselves?
Friday Open Thread: September 25, 2009
What’s on your mind this Friday?
Honestly, we don’t know what to say about Dr. Utopia’s performance at the UN anymore. We’re so disgusted by the “America is just one of 190 countries tour” and all of Utopia’s apologizing for and degrading of this country. Never in our lives did we think we would live to see a president who would stand on the world stage and repeatedly say America’s exceptionalism is a bad thing. This is a weak, naive, egotistical man who looks foolish wherever he goes and whenever he speaks in a way that makes Jimmy Carter look like Teddy Roosevelt. We are truly ashamed of Dr. Utopia — but take comfort every day in the fact that we did everything humanly possible to stop him on our end. To all those Republicans out there who sat their asses home last November and thought it would be fun to have “a new Carter” in hopes of scoring “a new Reagan” in 2012, we hope you’re enjoying what you wrought, becuase it’s the lot of you that are to blame for this.
There was no surge of youth or black voters, no matter how much the MSM tries to lie and tell you that. There was no sudden shift to the left in this country and no overabundance of liberals. Dr. Utopia gets to stand before the UN and declare his intention to subjugate this country before “international law” and the motley crew of petty thieves and idiots assembled there for one reason and one reason only: Republicans didn’t turn out and vote last year to stop him. We all, thus, have 3 more years of this narcicisstic apology tour to endure.
It’s so hard to see any good for this country in most of the things Dr. Utopia does.
If anyone out there can find some positive in his performance at the UN, please share it — because we only find it embarrassing. The UN is not a body to apologize to or seek wisdom from. The UN is a dysfunctional body that offers forums to lunatics like Chavez and Ahmadinajad (both of him adore our weak and naive president).
Does anyone else think it’s dangerous and wrong that the people who hate America most love that we have Dr. Utopia at the wheel?
Does anyone else think that’s going to lead to some disaster for us all in the near term?
Thursday Open Thread: September 24th, 2009
What’s on your mind this Thursday?
Chicago Olympics decision coming soon
Perfect Chicago Olympics Mascots: the Rat, the Pig, the Weasel, and the Sloth
Everyone we know in Chicago’s been consumed with the IOC’s 2016 decision, which is coming down soon.
Surprisingly, even for us, no one we know wants Chicago to land the Games.
We’re all backing Rio, at least in the circles we keep. We know there are “We Support the Bid” people out there, and we see those “Support the Bid” signs all over town, but the people we’re friends with and talk to regularly in Chicago don’t want any part of the Olympics.
All for different reasons, too.
We, because most of us work with nonprofits, don’t back the Olympics big because we foresee the destruction the fundraising for the Games will bring to the Chicago nonprofit community. Things are tight for educational and artistic institutions already, not to mention the less glamorous health and human services nonprofits in town. What happens when the Olympics are added to the fundraising mix and Mayor Daley and his team lean heavily on everyone in the city to raise the billions needed to fund the Games? Who’s going to suffer?
All the charities and nonprofits that currently depend on private donations to survive. At a time when people are losing their jobs left and right and money’s tight for even the wealthiest people we know, there just won’t be enough cash to donate to all the current nonprofits AND the Olympics too.
Yes, there will be some fundraising nationally from the very wealthy, but the bulk of that Olympics cash is expected to come from Chicago donors. And we are telling you — knowing from personal experience in the fundraising trenches — that there is not enough money to go around.
If Chicago really is awarded the Games, expect museums, dance companies, art schools, and health clinics to close between now and 2016 as they run out of funding while the Olympics coffers bulge.
So, that’s our main reason for opposing the Games here in Chicago: the drain they will have on nonprofits in town.
Other friends of ours don’t support the Games because they know city services in other areas will suffer between now and 2016 as the entire focus of Chicago will be put towards the Games. Friends of ours in the black community, in particular, know the Games will do nothing for the Southside, and will instead draw focus away from the pressing issues the City needs to resolve…but will have the Olympics as an excuse to avoid. A city with high crime, record levels of murders, and a school system in terrible shape should not be distracted by the Olympics.
No one we personally know believes the Games will do anything for the City…we do not believe any lasting new jobs will be created…we do not believe the Olympics will do anythinng to improve our economic standing…we do not think an Olympics legacy will better our lives in any way.
This whole bid is a giant fool’s errand.
And, to be honest, it’s really just a political maneuver by Mayor Daley to keep himself in office. When he started crowing loudly about the Olympics Daley was in bad political shape after renewed corruption and machine-related charges came to the surface again back in 2006-2007. Prior to this, Daley was not a fan of the Chicago Olympics idea because he knew what a boondoggle this would be. But, Daley needed a distraction from his own problems, and the Olympics was a giant distraction timed perfectly to save him politically. There’s enough razzle dazzle there to keep Daley in office through 2016 and beyond, as he will run for his next two terms based on being the spearhead needed to guarantee Olympics success. He will also use the Olympics to divert billions of dollars to every politically powerful person he needs to secure his next two terms. After that, it seems the plan is for Daley to retire and allow his chosen successor, Ron Huberman, to take over as Mayor post-Olympics.
Everything for Daley rests on winning those Games on October 2nd when the IOC announces its decision. Chicago will truly suffer in so many ways if those Games come here, but Daley will stay in office and that’s all he really cares about.
The rest of us, however, care about Chicago itself…so all we can do is hope and pray for Rio to somehow convince the IOC that its crime and transportation problems aren’t enough to stop it from being the first South American city to waste billions on the Olympics.
Here are two sites that share similar thoughts to ours on this:
Americans must stop Chicago Olympics corruption
Mrs. Utopia is a fashion icon after all. For cave people.
So, Jeffrey Scott just showed his new Spring Line at London’s Fashion Week, and we can’t help but notice how inspired he was by Mrs. Utopia’s Wilma Flintstone-wears-used-coffee-filters inaugural gown, designed by drag queen dressmaker Jason Wu (whose other clients, besides our current first lady, include fabulous RuPaul Charles and busty transsexual Amanda LePore).
Here’s what Mrs. Utopia felt was appropriate for the inaugural balls last January:
In what dimension is this appropriate attire?
And here’s what Jeffrey Scott put on the runway in London:
These are hideous, but if Jake Gyllenhaal wanted to stuff his Bam Bam and Pebbles into the number on the far right, we'd, well, kind of like that. Yes, please.
Ironically, Mrs. Utopia would actually look really good in the purple one. Purple and leopard prints look GREAT on her. AND, if she's going to wear crazy and ugly things anyway, she might as well go full out Wilhelmina Slater with it.
We'd love to see all of these at the Halsted Street Halloween Parade this year in Boystown. Seeing them on a day that's not Halloween, not loving it so much.
The green one on the far left would actually look nicer on Mrs. Utopia than some of the things she likes to wear, too. And how ridiculous is that, when cheap Halloween costumes look better than things Vogue and Vanity Fair praise the current first lady for wearing?
We’ve said it before, and we’ll say it again: Yabba. Dabba. DON’T!
PS: Another thing we’ve said before that bears repeating: the current first lady is not a fashion icon, no matter how many times the MSM tells you she is. She is no more a fashion icon than the Jeffrey Scott collection’s ready-to-wear and something every woman in America wants to have in her closet. And people never rode around on dinosaurs or kept them as pets, no matter how many times those kooks in Kentucky at the Creationism Museum insist they did (where the Flintstones is shown as historical documentation). Facts are facts, people.
Wednesday Open Thread: September 23rd 2009
What’s on your mind this Wednesday?
Are you watching coverage of the UN today?
How irrelevant is the UN to you, in general?
We still think ultimately Hillary Clinton will end up becoming UN Secretary General…it would be strange for the UN to ever let an American have that post, but we wonder what Clinton will do after Secretary of State, and that spot seems a natural for her, considering her popularity and name-recognition around the world. She’d be a really great Secretary General…much better than the last three we’ve had.
What think you?
